Tattoo
by LollyAspen
Summary: After the war, Astoria and Draco get tattoos. Oneshot.


It took some persuading, but she finally convinced him that it would be alright. It wasn't like the Dark Mark. He was in charge of where it was and what it was. It could be anything, and it could be beautiful.

Dan Fleming, a Muggle, owned the tattoo parlor the Malfoys walked into early in the morning, having Apparated to a safe spot a few blocks away. Draco looked suspicious and surly, but Astoria wore a pleasant expression of ease and comfort.

"You the Malfoys?" Dan asked.

"Mmm-hmm," Astoria nodded as she led Draco over to the chairs by the hand. Draco, who always looked like he hadn't seen the sunlight, looked even paler as he settled into the chair, his grip tightening around Astoria's fingers.

Dan did Astoria's first. She wanted it on her left shoulder blade, and the design came from a beautiful drawing Dan had in his design book. Draco tried to watch, but eventually, he shut his eyes at the pinpricks of blood that had formed around Astoria's skin.

His own design was crumpled up in his sweating fist. He'd spent a week on it, sketching by his wandlight at night after Astoria had fallen asleep, her soft breathing and the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest keeping him focused.

From the time Draco was five and had brought his drawings to his study, Lucius Malfoy had encouraged the phrase, "To be creative is not our way." His ambition for his son was much more. To work in the Ministry, to win friends, to influence laws, to add to the vast Malfoy fortune. Little Draco's drawings of the peacocks would serve him no use.

Draco still found a way. Not a kind way, but still a way. The buttons he made about Weasley and Potter were brilliant, and he did write the entire "Weasley Is Our King," song. He'd make up rhymes about his peers and curse their quills to write out the rhyme when they tried to write their name. He'd made the Dementor costumes in third year when he tried to get Potter to fall off his broom. It was him who'd been able to fix the Vanishing Cabinet, which was no easy feat and had nearly killed him. A tattoo design for Draco was an old hat.

"Draco?"

He snapped out of his reverie. "You're finished?"

"Yeah," she said as she gingerly lowered her shirt over her back again. "I wanted it smaller. Just for the first one."

"Can I see?" he asked, curious how it had turned out.

"It's a surprise," she grinned. "You'll see later. Come on now, it's your turn."

Dan stood off to the side sanitizing his gear. "You said you had something you'd done Mr. Malfoy?"

"Yes," Draco said as he licked his lips and tried hard to swallow the lump in his throat. He handed the paper over to Dan, wiping his hands on his pants to get rid of the sweat. "I'd, er, like it here." He pointed towards a spot on the left side of his chest.

"Shirt off then."

Draco removed his t-shirt and passed it to Astoria. "You can't watch. It's a surprise for you too."

"How about a hand to hold though?" She smiled, her touch filling Draco with a sense of calm.

Dan studied Draco's design with furrowed eyebrows. "This is quite something Mr. Malfoy. You an artist?"

"No," Draco said firmly. "I'm not."

"He's a banker," Astoria supplied. "A brilliant one at that. More forward thinking than anyone else in his department."

"Well Mr. Malfoy the banker, let's get started."

Draco's tattoo took much longer than Astoria's. Draco sat with his teeth grit, his favorite swears hissing out in short breaths as Dan worked his own brand of magic. Astoria held tightly to his hand, her eyes focused on the Muggle magazine she'd found up front and was flipping through.

"These scars are pretty nasty," Dan noted as he passed over one of the jagged lines in Draco's chest.

"What? Oh, yes. I suppose so."

Dan looked at his chest more closely. "Some bugger really messed you up. Knife fight?"

"It was a fight," Draco affirmed, hoping his cold tone would discourage Dan from asking further questions.

"What happened?"

When his nightmares used to be more than unbearable, the most prominent one was this memory of the bathroom. His panic, his hopelessness, his despair, and then his rage. The sight of Potter, the boy who took everything from him, sent him into a blind frenzy that at the time he only knew to solve with the Unforgivable Curses. In return, Potter fired a spell that was more gruesome than the Cruciatus. Draco had never seen so much blood as he did when it was coming from the deep cuts on his chest as if he was a boat that had sprung a leak. He never could forget how much he had wished Snape hadn't healed him and just left him to die there in a red sea of his own failure. Now they reminded him of how things were different. How he was different. But that was not something he could ever explain to Dan.

"This git at school started something with me. It was a while ago, so I don't remember much."

Dan nodded and didn't probe any further. Draco didn't give off the air of someone keen on talking.

Hours passed. The longer Draco sat, the calmer he felt. Though the sting of the needles hurt like hell, it was nothing compared to the slow, agonizing burn of the Dark Mark when he'd been branded with it. No one had held his hand then. His mother had not been permitted to watch the ceremony, and Lucius had been in Azkaban.

"Mr. Malfoy," Dan said with a final flourish. "Come back in when that's less irritated. I want a picture of it for my wall."

"Alright," Draco lied. He didn't want something so precious to him up for Muggles to see.

Astoria, who had taken Muggle Studies at Hogwarts and knew more about Muggle money than Draco did, paid Dan for his good work and the two left, Draco's arm resting on her back.

It wasn't until late in the night after they'd had a little Firewhisky to celebrate that the pair revealed their tattoos to one another.

Astoria went first, gingerly removing her shirt and laying down across their bed, her bare back illuminated by the soft candlelight in their bedroom. Draco was speechless as he gazed at her. Dan had put a small but beautiful green dragon on her shoulder blade, its wings spread in flight and dripping silver drops which seemed to trickle down her back to a series of silver letters outlined in black.

" _In perpetuum et unum diem,_ " he read quietly. "It's Latin?"

"'Forever and a day,'" she recited, her smile hidden by their sheets.

"Can I—" he began, tenderness creeping into his voice that he saved only for Astoria.

"Very gently," Astoria said.

His fingers twitched every so slightly as he reached to trace the dragon on her back. The shade of green was a strong emerald. It could only be Slytherin's green. "Is this-Is this me?" he stammered, hoping she didn't think he was being too presumptuous for thinking so.

"Yes," she answered softly. "I didn't get a tattoo for a long time because I was waiting for the perfect thing to put. And then I met you, my dragon. And while you are far from perfect, you are a part of me. Forever."

He was all the more certain he'd gotten the right tattoo as his fingers passed over the little dragon again. A fitting ode to this mountain of a woman who had chiseled away his sharpness with her trademark Hufflepuff kindness.

"Let me see yours," Astoria said as she sat up and crossed her legs. Draco removed his shirt and laid down, his pale skin flushed as he anticipated her reaction. He heard Astoria's breath hitch in her throat as she leaned closer.

The tattoo covered the entire left side of his chest, intricate lines and colors swirling together to form a detailed maze. Golden and silver strands led to the center of the maze, a spot directly over Draco's beating heart. The maze's twists and turns ended centrally at three bold letters which curved into an arch.

"It's a maze," Astoria whispered, in awe of the design. "Draco, this is amazing. How did you…"

"Read the center," he diverted, not wanting her to miss what was most important. That while the maze was beautiful, it was what lay at its end that counted most.

She leaned closer. "A… G… M…" she read aloud. "Astoria Greengrass Malfoy."

"I wanted those directly over this," he said as he pointed to his wildly thumping heart. "Because no matter where we are, you'll always be right here with me. Right here-"

She cut off his sentence as she claimed his lips with her own. He sank back into their pillows and pulled her across his lap, her long hair tickling his cheeks. The way she kissed him ignited every part of his body, and it felt so good to know that someone as good as her loved someone as rough as him. Her lips moved to a particularly sensitive spot on his neck, and he sighed into her skin. He'd made the right decision with the tattoo.

Over the years, Astoria went on to get several other tattoos, much to the displeasure of her in-laws. Draco only ever had one addition. A month after his son was born, he returned to Dan's to have three more initials etched right underneath Astoria's.

A.G.M. and S.H.M. were more than enough.


End file.
